Some cancers occurring in the mouth, throat or gullet (oesophagus) can cause difficulty in swallowing. Radiotherapy is sometimes used to help these tumours but, as your mother's doctors have said, it can sometimes make swallowing worse to begin with and it may be some weeks before there is any improvement.

In this situation, if a liquid diet becomes difficult, then the doctors might consider PEG feeding. The initials PEG stand for percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy. What this means is that under a local, or short general, anaesthetic a feeding tube is threaded from the stomach to an opening on the front of the abdomen. This can then be used to pass a nutritional diet directly into the stomach, bypassing the tumour.

A nasogastric tube is another of giving nutrients in this situation. This involves passing a tube through the nose, down the throat and into the stomach. A liquid diet can then be poured down the tube. This does mean that the end of the tube is always visible as it projects from the nose. This cosmetic disadvantage, combined with the fact that many people find nasogastric tubes uncomfortable has led to increasing use of PEGs as an alternative, since they were first introduced in the 1980s.

Often a PEG is a temporary measure used to build people up for their treatment or to tide them over when swallowing problems occur during treatment but sometimes it may be permanent, although this is more likely in a number of non-cancerous conditions where there are long term feeding-difficulties.

Although having a PEG sounds upsetting most people cope with it very well and are able to be fully mobile and enjoy a good quality of life.